


Believe

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Abduction, F/M, Requiem AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-16 00:01:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 27
Words: 17,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11816976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: What if it wasn't Mulder that was abducted in Requiem?





	1. Chapter 1

He feels like he needs to drop to his knees and beg her to leave. What kind of fucked up place are they in? He’s spent seven years wanting her to stay, to follow him on his quest. And now, just as he’s ready to believe – not in aliens or the truth, but in something as ironic as love – he’s pushing her away. They’re seasoned at the subtext, the passivity, the undercurrent of their strange relationship. But what he needs to hear now is something grand and declarative. He needs the okay, Mulder, I’m going home and I’ll stay safe.  
She scoots back against him, sniffing. “I’ll be fine, Mulder. I need to stay. We’ve come so far and I need to see this with you.”  
“You’re not well. Go home, Scully.” Please. Just for me.  
She rolls over and strokes his jaw line, gently scratching at his stubble with a finger and thumb, her eyes half-closed and a small smile playing across her lips. His body reacts and he shifts back in embarrassment. It’s still new and if he loses himself in the sounds she makes and the way she guides him inside her with the most erotic mix of coy and confidence and the way her hair feels against his bare skin, if that happens now, she’ll stay and that isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. He knows she has to leave. Just knows.  
But she stays. She packs a backpack with water and her flashlight and she smiles at him as he checks in with Skinner. He is distracted by her, by her presence. She is here. She is with him. And they are going to see the UFO.  
He pockets his phone. “Skinner is concerned. He wants us to go back to Washington tonight.”  
“Mulder,” she says. “This is everything you’ve worked for.”  
He knows. He knows that. “The gunmen told Skinner there’s evidence they’re looking for me. I don’t…”  
She flicks her hair from out of the collar of her jacket. “What evidence?”  
“That Billy Miles and the other abductees have the same electro encephalitic brain trauma that I had earlier this year. That it’s not you who’s at risk, but me.”  
“What? What does this mean?”  
He’s sure she knows what it means. But she’s determined to be with him when he sees the fruition of his pursuit. “It means we need to be careful, Scully.” He drops a kiss on her head and she steps into him. She fits him. Everything about her fits him and it’s only now that he sees this clearly. Maybe this is his God showing himself. He has spent so long praying for the truth that his God is offering up the treasures of his brightest dreams. She looks up at him, into him. He feels her as surely as he feels his own heartbeat. She is inside him, his skin, his thoughts, his being. They are one and he pulls her tighter, feeling her delicate frame even through the bulk of her night gear. He feels her juddering breath and he kisses her like he can save her soul.  
“We should go, Mulder. Let’s see what’s out there for us.”


	2. Chapter 2

She wakes. Or at least she thinks she does. She’s not sure she’s really awake because the dark is so thick she can taste it. There is a silence so deep she can hear her own blood pulsing. She is stiff with fear. She can’t move but she can’t decide if it’s because she’s afraid or because she is physically restrained. She can’t shake the feeling that if she moves she’ll pay some heavy price. She instinctively knows to be still. Maybe it’s her training. Maybe it’s base human response. Breathing as shallowly as she is able she makes herself think.  
When she was young she always had a special hiding place, wherever they lived. A place where she felt safe. She could get away from Melissa and her bossy mouth and later, her lurid stories of boys . She could get away from Bill and his deliberate teasing which became more controlling as she got older and she could get away from Charlie who was sweet for a few minutes a day, but exhausted her with his childish demands. She’d build a treehouse, not high on a thick branch, but at the base of bushy stand of trees. She’d worked out pretty early on that adults automatically expected things to be as they should: kids hiding in their bedrooms would be under the bed or in the closet; kids running away would pack random clothing or toys and no food and would invariably head to their best friend’s house; kids hiding in the forest would clamber up to a horizontal branch.  
Girls who studied hard and prayed would become good doctors.  
One day, after a quarrel with Missy about borrowing clothes (she hadn’t taken the sunshine yellow crochet tank because sunshine yellow looked gross on her) and a subsequent yelling match with Bill who threatened to tell Father Ryan and her parents that she’d used the word bitch (she called him a little bitch multiple times on her way out of the house), she found herself huddling her knees to her red hot face and crying burning tears.  
She wasn’t usually prone to crying fits. She hated the way the emotion drained her, tore out her soul for little reward other than a stuffy nose and no logical answer to the question that had made her cry in the first place. She’d practised so hard over the years to hold in tears, to swallow them down and to use her brain to ask why she felt so vulnerable. She’d created a strategy. First, breathe. Second, breathe again, swallow. Third, dig her nails into her palms and feel the sharp pain. Fourth, take a step back and work out what the trigger was. Fifth, ask why it hurt so much. Finally, do something positive to turn hurt into action.  
That day, huddled in her tree fort, with a warm evening wind whipping the fronds around her so they sounded like a choir of saintly mothers hushing their babies to sleep, she dug her nails into her knee caps and watched the half-moons whiten, redden then fade. She repeated, breathing and swallowing. She cuffed away the tears she’d already shed and sniffed. The scent of pine filled her. Her mouth was dry, her head pounded, waves of nausea gripped at her stomach.  
Why had this series of events hit her so hard? The argument really wasn’t much different to the ones they’d had before. Missy always launched into her before she had her facts straight. The yellow tank was probably on the back seat of her latest boyfriend’s car. And when she found it, she’d hug her and tell her she loves her. Bill was always itching to take command. He loved to see himself as the great mediator, the politician of the family. But what he really was, and he was the best at it, was a bully. He used his size and his gender to win. And he often got the backing of their father. But why was this time so painful? Was it because they’d both called her a child? She hated that. Hated knowing that the world treated her differently because of her age. That she was supposed to just accept some things because of her position in the family hierarchy?  
She flopped her head down between her knees again and that’s when she saw it. The dark stripe at the crotch of her denim shorts. The patchy streaks down her inner thighs. She touched the skin there and lifted her fingertips to her nose. Metallic. Dried blood. She stood up and felt the gush between her legs. She laughed.


	3. Chapter 3

He stares at the stretch of grass in front of him. If he stands a particular way, if he thinks something positive, if he imagines her walking towards him, if he believes she will come back. She will.  
It’s been five days and there is no sign. Each day has started the same way. He opens his eyes and his body is energised, ready. He cannot measure the time it takes to realise that Scully is missing. He feels the rush dissipate, fall away as he emerges from the pseudo-comfort sleep. By the third day he wished he could just stay awake so that the trickery wouldn’t happen, the luring of him to the edge of calm only to throw him into the crazed jaws of hope.  
He has endured a tortured relationship with sleep over his life. Even before Samantha he would spend hours lying awake, wondering about his place in the world, listening to the low murmuring of his parents, interpreting the creaks and shadows of his room.  
The day before Samantha disappeared, he was out with his friend on their bikes. His mother had made apple pie and he’d wrapped a slice in foil and filled his drink bottle with water. Samantha pulled her boots on at the door, ready to go with him but he shooed her away, desperate to be the big boy, the older child. His father frowned at him often, looked at him askance when he would ask about fantastical things. His mother was softer, more open to his stories and questions but she had no answers. She would shake her head and rub her hands into the apron she wore, dark blue with cream stripes. She would call him her dreamer, her strange little dreamer. He looked at his mother in the kitchen wondering when it would be that he didn’t dream anymore.  
The bike ride was exhilarating, freewheeling down hills and pushing back them up. The trees had turned, slipping from life to their strange hiatus. The cool rain pelted them, pricking at their young skin so that when they got home, the heat from inside burned their red cheeks. His hair was plastered to his head, his jeans heavy-wet and cold. The shape of his legs remained when he pulled them off in the bathroom. The shower was heaven and when he emerged Samantha sat on the end of his bed.  
“Will you read to me tonight, Fox?”  
Usually, he would dib her in the ribs and chase her away, but that night, there was something about her face, her wistful smile, the way she twirled her braid around her fingers. He picked up his battered copy of Heidi and started at the beginning. She climbed into his bed, snuggled under the blankets. Her face against his pillow was pale with the tiredness that overcame young children. He imagined if she were younger she would have rolled on her side and sucked on her thumb, but she simply closed her eyes and sighed. He took that as a sign to read on and before he knew he had read half of the book and Samantha was asleep, breathing out in a rhythm that comforted him more than his mother’s touch.  
He trod to her room and tucked himself into the smaller bed, curling his legs up to his chest. His father didn’t come home that night and his mother was late to bed. Mulder stared at the unfamiliar patterns on Samantha’s walls and curtains, heard a different beat in this room, felt like something had shifted, or was about to shift. He couldn’t put his finger on it. It wasn’t just about the different room. He felt like he was standing on a precipice ready to make a decision about falling in or stepping back. And when he woke from a fitful sleep, he knew with utter certainty that whatever decision he made would make no difference.


	4. Chapter 4

The cell she is held in, for she can only really call it that, a cell, a prison, a torture chamber, is nothing more than a grey-black space. In the day time it is grey. In the hellish night hours it is too black to fathom. She has lost track of time, an unusually cruel punishment for someone so ordered and logical. She has never been one to ‘lose herself’ to a project. Even at college she would pace herself, set herself a routine and stick to it, always aware of the hours and minutes ticking by. She would pride herself on achieving her goals in the given time. And working with Mulder had shown her how scattered and unwieldy a case – he himself - could become if a routine is not established.  
God, Mulder. In the first days she thought of him constantly. His image in her mind’s eye was her go-to comfort. Nothing happened in those first few days. The torture was only that of being isolated. She was uninjured physically, but as her body hummed with adrenaline for hours then days she quickly became exhausted, and ironically, unable to sleep. Mulder’s face behind her eyes softened her fear in the long stretches of silence between her yelling, screaming and cursing. One time, she pummelled the strangely textured cold walls – there was no visible entrance to the room – so hard that she bruised every knuckle on both hands. But fuck, it felt good.  
Then it all changed. They came. And with them the most exquisite fear.  
She had known fear in her life. Many times she had stared it down. The X-files had shown her she could face it, and live.  
When Duane Barry took her she had been frightened for her life. He was a psychotic shell of a man whose own brain had turned against him. His personality, like a cancer, grew and morphed into something uncontrollable and uncontrolled. But he was still a human, still showed emotion and she could still find some empathy for him, even in her battered and fearful state on that mountain.  
When Donnie Pfaster asked if her hair was normal or dry she felt such revulsion, such flaming anger at the normalcy he brought to his brute evil. But there was something fierce inside that erupted and eventually saved her. Twice.  
When she fought the cancer, the worst part was knowing what was happening, in gruesome detail, in her own body. Knowledge is power, that was what she always thought. But that knowledge provided her with nothing but impotence at the end. She couldn’t fight it. It had beaten her and accepting that was the hardest thing. Not just for her, but for Mulder. It was at that time she realised he loved her. She acknowledged it, accepted it, made it real rather than pushing it away as some abstract to be dealt with when she was ready. If cancer taught her anything, it was that you were never ready. She loved him too. Intensely, deeply, unbelievably. She could never tell him of course. She was dying. He wanted nothing but to save her. A declaration at that point, for either of them, would have meant nothing but the end.  
She read a lot then. Her mother had given her an inspirational quotes book and the one she held on to was from Socrates: To know is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.  
But in this space, wherever she is, the fear tamps down her instincts. She is afraid. Deathly afraid. She is losing her fight. Losing hope.  
They are in the testing chamber before she can move. They just appear. She never remembers leaving the room. When she is conscience again, who knows how many minutes later, she is on the table. She is pinned by invisible ties. Or maybe she is pinned by her own fear. She thinks of Mulder just as the first laser pricks her skin. She screams out his name.


	5. Chapter 5

“Scullaaaay!”  
He can see her, can feel her shape against him, can smell her body, taste her sweetness. But she is not there. It has been several months now but he is not used to the lack of her. He starts to call her name, looks over his shoulder for her, waits for her admonishment, her support, her soft laugh, her warm kiss. He is waiting, waiting all the time.  
Skinner sits in the seat and slides a coffee towards him. His meaty fingers grip his own mug. The fluoro above is unkind, shining off his head. Mulder stares at the liquid in front of him. He is suddenly so tired that he could sleep for days, head on the formica table top, sugar granules digging into his face.  
“Agent Mulder, you were due to report to Violent Crimes this morning. Your supervisor was expecting you at 8am.”  
The words are delivered with precision, cut out from a phone call Skinner had no doubt received earlier from Bullen in VC. Where the fuck is Mulder? You gave me your word he’d be no trouble. I’ve got plenty of other talented guys waiting for their chance. Your spooky prima donna fuck-up isn’t going to swan around and waste my time.  
“Mulder?”  
“I can’t do it, sir. I can’t give up like that.”  
Skinner sighs. “Nobody’s asking you to give up, Mulder, but the case has gone cold. You know there’s nothing more I can do. My hands are tied. Agent Scully will remain listed as missing and if any new leads come up then a taskforce may be assembled to investigate. But you can no longer just head off on a whim whenever a UFO is reported over the skies of Illinois or Florida or Wyoming. It’s just not going to be sanctioned any more.”  
The vinyl seat squeaks under him. His elbows press into the table top and he leans his forehead on his open palms. His skin is greasy. “I need more time. Scully needs more time.” A crash of crockery from the kitchen startles him. He lifts his head. “We all owe her that.”  
“I know you and Agent Scully shared a special bond, Mulder. And you know how much I respected…respect her. She was one of the best agents I’ve worked with. But the bureau will not give you special dispensation because you fell in love with your partner.”  
He lets out a bitter laugh. “Fuck you.”  
His apartment is all shadows and ghosts. If he listens hard he can recall the sound of her, the way her clothes swished or her hairbrush sounded as she went through her morning routine, or the rhythm of her toothbrush, the soft pop as her lips opened to seek his, the sigh of her REM sleep.  
“Where are you, Scully?”  
I’m here, Mulder. You just have to know where to look.  
He blinks. Lifts the beer bottle to his lips. “I’ve looked everywhere. There’s no trace of the ship.”  
Look inside.  
The beer is warm and tastes fruity. He leans back against the couch, stares at the ceiling. The green light from the fish tank traces artful patterns. He makes a fist and smashes it against the arm, then places it against his chest.  
Yes.  
His heart beats quicker. He leans forward.  
There.  
“Here, Scully? Yes, here.” His fingers drum with his own pulse. He spreads them across his chest. Waits a few beats. Thinks of her face, the simple beauty of her. He drops his hand and slips in under his tee shirt, feeling up the line of hair to his belly button, higher across his chest. The skin is warmer there. Hot. “Right here, Scully. You’re right here. And I’m coming to get you.”


	6. Chapter 6

She curls on her side, bringing her legs up to her chest. She feels bruised inside and out but there are no marks. The tests are brutal but she doesn’t remember what happens. She is in the bright white chamber. Then she isn’t. She slides a hand under the square-cut white top she is wearing and rests her hand over her stomach, tracing the skin. She imagines Mulder’s gentle fingers doing the same. Tears spill. They bring nothing but memories, as though whole scenes are captured inside. If she lets them run, she sees more.  
When they first made love it was a surprising way to celebrate the New Year. She laid him gently on his back, bandages covering his shoulder. He touched the bruised skin on her neck. She rolled the hairs on his chest between her fingers as she rode him. She was out of practise and he was unable to hold off, but his eyes held such a look of reverence that she knew he didn’t care about anything other than the fact they were together this way. Anything more was a bonus. She stayed that night, told herself it was to keep any eye on him and the wound, but the reality was she just couldn’t leave. He wrapped himself around her, resting a hand on her stomach and traced circles around her belly button. When they woke, they hadn’t moved and his hand started its lazy motion again, eventually dipping lower to brush her pubic hair. She nudged herself back and h dipped one, then two fingers inside, rubbing her back and forth until she cried out.  
“I knew you could do it, Scully.”  
She chuffed out a soft moan as he bit her shoulder softly, his stubble sending her nipples to peaks in an instant. “I think you did that. Can I return the favour?”  
“I don’t give to receive, Dr Scully. And it wasn’t a favour.”  
She ducked her head and whispered, “I didn’t mean that.”  
“I know,” he said, lifting his hand to cup her breast. His fingers were wet with her. “I never thought this would happen, Scully.”  
“Never?”  
“Well, I imagined it. A few times,” he said, chuckling. “But I never thought you’d let yourself.” The arm under her hip shifted and his hand stroked down her thigh and then up to her stomach, pressing her to him. “I’m humbled that you opened yourself up to me, for me.” He let her breast go and tapped her breast bone. “Your heart is strong. So strong, Scully. I won’t hurt you.”  
She smiled. “I know.”  
She has lost count of the days and weeks and months. She runs a hand over her stomach and notices the swell. She rubs back again and shifts onto her back. It doesn’t sink away. There is a small but definite mound. She hasn’t bled since she was here. But stress and fear would do that. Now though. Now, she is thinking, her mind racing, her heart beating double quick. She sits up, looks down at her bare abdomen.  
“My God, Mulder.”


	7. Chapter 7

She is lying on a bed, her eyes glittering with tears. She is beautiful. He wants to hold on to this image. He won’t open his eyes. He can’t lose her again. Every day he loses her and he can’t. Just can’t.  
I’m having a hard time explaining it. Or believing it. But…I’m pregnant.  
“Scully?”  
I’m pregnant.  
I’m pregnant, Mulder. I need you to find us.  
The voice is so real, so desperate, it rips into his brain. He can’t help but open his eyes and look for her. Logically, rationally, he knows she is not there. But it still burns to see his living room, empty. He sits up. He’s fallen asleep on the couch again. He’s missed three calls from Agent Westaway, his temporary partner. He rubs his hair. Where the fuck is she?

His father stalked through the house that night. Prowled. He remembered how scared he was – not of the fact that his sister had disappeared – that came later, but by his father. He’d gone from simply distant to cold, from vaguely interested to cut off entirely, from brooding to fearsome. He was drinking whisky. He was chain-smoking, dropping long ends of ash onto the carpet. His mother sat in her chair and twisted the ends of a lacy handkerchief into tight coils.  
“Where the fuck is she?”  
“You know where, Bill. And she’s not coming back, is she?”  
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” his father hissed, pouring more liquor into the bottom of his glass. “Not like this. With no warning.”  
“Then what was it supposed to be like, Bill?”  
His mother’s question delivered with a finality that made him shudder, was the last time he heard his mother challenge his father.  
Westaway is well-intentioned but rankles Mulder with his kindly face and reasoned responses. When he was partnered with Krycek, Mulder wanted to smash his pretty nose most of the time. But Westaway is the kind of agent who he just wants to drive to the local health clinic and leave him with the counsellors and alt-health practitioners. They’d love him and his meticulous caring.  
“The Stellini file, Agent Mulder? What are your thoughts?”  
Mulder shakes his head and just about manages to avoid lying on the office couch and confessing his latent fantasies. “My thoughts are that it’s lunch time.”  
“You hungry?” The note of relief in the younger man’s voice makes Mulder smile.  
“I do eat occasionally, Westaway.”  
“Good to know. Running on coffee and air in your…” He pulls up.  
“My? My condition?”  
“I didn’t mean to imply anything. I’m just happy to see you putting the fuel in.”  
Mulder nods.  
I’m pregnant, Mulder. I need you to find us.  
“I know,” he says.  
Westaway smiles beatifically as he holds the door open for him. He sees this as a win. He’s got his spooky new partner to go on a buddy lunch with him and it’s like a win at the Superbowl.


	8. Chapter 8

She knows the routine by heart now. She is removed from the cell and taken to the testing chamber. There are always three of them, wearing silvery protective gear. But she has never seen their faces, nor heard them speak. She could not even say definitively if they are human. She has no idea if she has travelled anywhere since she was taken from Bellefleur. But she gets the impression these beings are ‘light’, insubstantial some how. She can’t articulate it, but she feels like they are floating, untethered.  
She watches them more closely. She turns her head, she twists on the bed, she fights a little more, testing the invisible restraints, watching for a reaction, trying to work out where the entrance ways are in this monochrome, windowless room. The equipment is strange, laid out with the same precision as an OR or dental trolley but she doesn’t recognise anything. She talks to them. They do not acknowledge her but one of them, the slightly shorter one, does hesitate a beat before the laser starts.  
She has trained herself to meditate during the sessions. The lasers burn just as she blanks out, but it’s the fear that hurts more. She used to get herself so tense that her muscles would cramp and ache for days. Now she commands herself to relax, takes herself to her happy place, concentrates on the image she has of Mulder, his face close to hers, his eyes filled with love, his mouth in a lazy half-smile, a glib remark always just a second away. Whatever it is they are doing, it is repetitive, invasive in a way she can’t get a handle on. She knows they are looking inside her, but not in a way she can understand. She hopes they can’t see the baby. But in her darkest moments, she fears that is all they want.  
When her mother was heavily pregnant with Charlie, she fell over and cut her knee. It wasn’t that bad but all she really wanted was a hug from her mother. But what she got was a quick rub down with a warm wet cloth and a bandaid stuck on at an awkward angle. Bill called her a wuss and Missy told her off for bothering their mother.  
Her mother did look exhausted, rubbing the sides of her huge belly before resting a hand in the small of her back and sighing. Pregnancy looked painful and hard. She slipped to her bedroom and flopped on her bed, feeling too restless to read even. Her mother knocked on the door and walked in with a pile of pressed clothes.  
“Are you unwell, Dana?”  
“No, just tired, I think.”  
“How’s your knee?”  
“Fine. It’s fine.”  
Her mother sat on her bed and smiled. “You’re a good girl, Dana. I’m sorry I don’t have the energy to spend more time with you.” She sat up and looked at the mound under her mother’s smock top. “Would you like to talk to your baby brother or sister?”  
“Can they hear me?” She leant closer.  
Her mother lifted her top and she saw the taut skin, the belly button popped out, a brown line leading down from it. “I’m sure they can. I talked to all of my babies. Here, put your hand here, the baby’s moving.”  
She rested her hand on her mother’s round side and giggled as the baby’s movements caused her mother’s stomach to bulge and dip. “Does it hurt?”  
Her mother laughed. “No, it’s a bit uncomfortable, but it doesn’t hurt. Women’s bodies are designed for this. We’re pretty amazing, Dana.”  
She laid her cheek on her mother’s tummy and whispered, “hello baby. I’m looking forward to meeting you.”  
Her mother stroked her hair and she closed her eyes, imagining what the baby would look like. Trying to imagine herself as a mother.  
“And you’re going to be a wonderful big sister, Dana. You’re strong and capable. You’re my strongest child. Bill is full of bluster but he’s insecure, Missy is a dreamer but over sensitive. But you, you have an intensity of spirit that belies your age. Whatever you choose to do, Dana, I’m sure you’ll be the best at it. You were born ready.”  
Since she acknowledged her condition, she has become hyperaware of her imprisonment. The torture, the lack of nourishing food, the schedule of exercises she has worked out for herself, the unyielding need to escape. She gathers all these elements of her world and uses them to prepare herself. Every session she learns more. She studies the shorter being, the weaker one. She tries something different every time. She finally feels like she’s getting somewhere. She feels ready.


	9. Chapter 9

The Lone Gunmen are still tracking UFOs. Their message was a welcome relief from the monotony of an autopsy report on the latest murder victim. Westaway frowns as he slips out but lets him leave.  
“What have you got, Byers?”  
“An unusual pattern of sightings, in Virginia.”  
“Why unusual?” He looks at the grainy satellite images but sees nothing through the building optimism that he tries to tamp down.  
“Clusters,” Frohike says. “Threes and fours, over several hours.”  
“What does that mean?”  
Byers clears his throat. “Nothing in and of itself, but it could be a sign that something bigger is about to go down.”  
“Go down? What’s that supposed to mean? Is she on one of these things, or not?”  
“We don’t know, man,” Langly says. “We just wanted you to be aware. It’s not a dissimilar pattern to what we saw before she disappeared. More movement, more clustering.”  
He sits on the chair before his legs give out on him. “Fuck. She could be up there. So close. She could be so close.”  
I’m pregnant, Mulder. I need you to find us.  
“I’m coming, Scully. I’m coming to find you.”  
In the first days after Samantha went missing, he would talk to her. He would creep into her room when his mother had cried herself to sleep on her chair, and his father was drinking on the back deck, and he would slide under the covers of her bed and talk to her. He would tell her what had happened during the day, what was happening with her favourite tv shows, read from her latest book. He would whisper real low so nobody but Samantha could hear him. And he knew she was listening.  
Sometimes there would be signs that she was talking back to him, sending him messages. One day, her favourite teddy had moved. It used to sit on the book shelf, at one end, as though it was pointing to the row of books to be read. But this day, it was on her pillow. Fox knew it was waiting to tell him something. Something good, something comforting about his sister. Another time, a purple hair band sat on her desk in a perfect circle. A small tangle of hair was knotted in its clasp. He wore around his wrist for the longest time.  
Signs. If you knew where to look, how to believe, there were always signs.


	10. Chapter 10

Her stomach is obviously swollen now and the top she is wearing clings to her sides and waist. The pants are baggy-legged but she wears them below the bump and the exposed section of skin gives her comfort when she is alone in her cell. But when she is with them, she is wary. She places her hands over it, as though she can hide her creation from them.  
In the chamber, she looks up at the strange ceiling with its sloping sections that are textured and seem to move. She has never seen this kind of equipment before, the materials used to construct both this chamber and her cell are all unknown to her. They wave and flex, mesmerising her unless she is careful. Where is she, what kind of place is she in? Is it alien, is it a human construct?  
Is she even alive?  
She has started to believe that the flex and bend is how she is transported around. That if this craft is alien, there is nothing solid holding her in. Perhaps the beings use their minds not only to communicate with each other, but with the inanimate too. She looks for patterns in the movements and over days she learns them. She tests the shorter being with tricks – reaching out, swiping it, trying to grab it. She seems to swipe right through it sometimes. There is no touch, she registers nothing but the being’s movements becoming more wary as it hangs back a little.  
There is no break in the tests, but there is something to work for now. She wants them to take her into this room. She needs to see the patterns, the smaller being, to work through her plan, to convince herself that the risk is worth it.  
On her bed at night she curls one arm under her stomach, nestling her head on the other. Her stomach waves and flexes too, with the movement of the growing baby. She has learnt to discern legs from arms, feet from hands and at times she is incapable to doing anything other than weeping in awe. She is desperately sad that Mulder has not shared this incredible journey with her.  
There was a case they took once, in a town called Home, Pennsylvania. The case became one of the most disturbing they had encountered. In-breeding, babies with terrible birth defects, barbaric murders and a life-or-death battle in the Peacock family home. They escaped with their lives but she learnt something more profound than how much she valued life.  
When she diagnosed the many defects on the tiny body of an infant that had been buried alive, she felt a pang of more than just sadness for the mother. She had her own moment, a realisation that maybe she would be a mother one day. In fact, she shared a conversation with Mulder on a bench in the town. There was bright sunshine, in some kind of parody of the dark tragedy of the case, streaming into their faces. Mulder confessed he’d never seen her as a mother before. True, she hadn’t given it that much thought. Not until that case. But something inside her flipped so that she started to think about what having a child might truly mean. And she couldn’t shake it. Sometimes the urge was so strong that she spent time in the evening and weekends trawling the internet for sites that offered surrogacy, IVF. There were many options. Sometimes, she even allowed herself to think of Mulder in her plans.  
She lies now, stroking her belly and crooning to the child inside her. She thinks of Mulder as they sat on that bench all those years before.  
We all have a natural instinct to propagate.  
Do we?


	11. Chapter 11

Mulder wakes in the early hours. He’s surprised he slept at all. He is always surprised. Sleep still feels like a luxury. But the dream this time was so real. He can still feel the impression of her against his skin and he hugs himself in a desperate bid to recreate the embrace. The embrace where he finds her, pulls her to him, swears he’ll never let her go again. He shudders out a sob, a small bubble of a noise that erupts into loud, wracking heaves. He cries until he is dry.  
I’m pregnant, Mulder. I need you to find us.  
Samantha as an adult was not quite as he expected. He held an image in his mind all those years but how can you ever know what a child will look like as an adult? Samantha had the same curly dark brown hair as his childhood photo but her face was stretched and the proportions seemed all wrong. He remembered her cheeky grin, her chin dimple, her wonderment at everything. But this woman who claimed to be her was nothing like his memories. How could that be? How could someone you were so close to become someone so different? He felt guilty just thinking it, but his trained psychologist mind told him over and over that shock would do that, that he just needed time, that the idea of a bond for life was just that – an idea. But she wasn’t his sister. She wasn’t Samantha. She was a clone. He had been duped.   
After, when he was well enough to think about it, he understood that he knew all along that something was not quite right. He had willingly sacrificed Samantha for Scully, didn’t even think about it. Maybe because, deep inside, he knew it wasn’t her. Because he truly believed she was gone.  
The clusters of UFOs continue to buzz around the skies, hidden from the eyes of those who won’t acknowledge their existence. The gunmen keep him updated. One weekend he takes a drive to the nearest site. He sleeps in his car, shivering against the cool night air, but feeling alive for the first time in months. There is cloud but he stares through it, imagining the crafts pinballing through the skies. He has spent his life fascinated by these things, the thought of not being alone. His quest to find other life has been his reason, his motivation, the salve for his soul since Samantha disappeared. And yet now, he is terrified. Scully is out there. Not the truth, not the validation of his life’s work. Scully. His love.  
I’m pregnant, Mulder. I need you to find us.  
“I need a sign, Scully. Give me something.”


	12. Chapter 12

She talks to Mulder all the time. A diary of her mind, telling him the facts of the pregnancy, the snippets of information she knows he would delight in. The size of the foetus at each week. The progress of its development. The changes to her own body. She smiles as she tells him how her breasts will grow and change. It makes her feel soft inside, to share that intimate information, even if she isn’t doing it in person. She imagines that goofy grin of his turning serious as she lets him run his hands around the bump. Their baby. She knows he will be a wonderful father. A hands-on, silly faces, bedtime baths and stories, protective and loving father.  
She gives the bump a nickname. Eros. Not for its sexual connotations, but for the character from Plan 9 from Outer Space. Mulder told her once that he had watched that movie 42 times. She told him that made her sad. But truthfully, it made her love him just that tiny bit more, because it was so him. So dedicated, so tenacious, so unabashedly obsessed.  
The longer she waits the harder it will be to fight. Every waking moment is given to getting through the tests so she can work on her plan. She is consumed by it but it is the motivation she needs. She has kept herself fit, feels the hard edges of the muscles in her arms and legs as she does squats and tricep dips, limbers up, always careful not to overstretch as the pregnancy advances and her ligaments soften. She is ready whenever the opportunity presents. And when she arrives in the testing chamber she sees the shorter being, swipes at it before she becomes incapacitated and it flinches away, leaving her unrestrained. She feels freedom in every fibre of her body. She has no idea how she is going to do it yet, but she knows it starts with this feeling of resolute power that possesses her.  
When Donnie Pfaster burst out from her closet and attacked her for the second time, she thought she had a brief but searing thought that she was beaten. She fought so hard for so long but her size was against her and sheer exhaustion and fear had left her physically weakened. Mentally though she was still on fire. She inched and wriggled and prised and planned so that she got herself free before he’d been able to exact his horrific revenge. Mulder’s arrival was almost a moot point. By the time he’d pulled his gun and issued his warning she had already decided what she was going to do. Her mind was set, destiny was in motion. Pfaster was going to die. She hated how she felt after - the revulsion, being stripped back to bare animal instinct, the realisation that she was capable of such instinctive violence. But perhaps the worst feeling was that she knew she would do it again. Without a shadow of a doubt.  
The being flies back, not touching the ground for an unnatural amount of time. It hovers as it recovers. The others seem not to notice, preparing the instruments. She wonders if they are automatons, not programmed to understand something happening outside of their routine. She tries to manoeuvre herself from the bed but the air seems thicker, slower and she moves without propulsion, just sliding down to the ground. It’s tacky under her bare feet so her steps are laboured, but she crosses to where she thinks the exit is. The others are busy with their tools and they do not look up, but the shorter being is behind her. She tries to speed up but it’s like running in a dream and her arms reach out in front of her as she reaches the flexing walls. The being is closer now and she needs to push on, get through the wall. Her fingers touch the surface and it is ice cold. She lets out a surprised gasp but steels herself as she applies her weight.  
The wall bends and gapes in front of her. It morphs from opaque to glassy and she sees the reflection of the being behind her, almost at her back. She cries out but no sound emerges. The being touches her shoulder and she starts forward, dipping at an angle, momentarily forgetting the extra weight at her front. She stumbles, holds her hands out in front of her to protect the baby from the fall, but her feet move quicker as she passes through the wall and she rights herself, launching herself forward to the unknown. To freedom.  
The black air whooshes by her ears at a terrible, piercing pitch. She screams out Mulder’s name as she falls.


	13. Chapter 13

He hears her calling his name and he looks around. Westaway looks up from the papers he’s reading and drops his brows.  
“You okay, Agent Mulder?”  
He stands up, adrenaline coursing through his body. “I’m going out for a while. Don’t wait for me.”  
He drives. He talks. Words jamming into each other in a desperate quest to get her to answer him.  
“I’m coming Scully I’m coming to get you and you have to keep talking to me tell me where you are so I can get there quicker I need more I need a sign something to keep me on the right track just tell me. Just. Fucking. Tell. Me.”  
He drives west by instinct. An invisible string pulling him towards her. A tie, a bond, a joining that can never be separated.  
The chip in Scully’s neck sent her towards death once. It called her. He knew she hated that loss of control. But if he had been truly honest with himself back then, he would have admitted that he was curious. He wanted to know what it was like to feel an impulse so strong that you couldn’t stop yourself from acting. Humans liked to think of themselves as a higher being, having a moral and social code separated them from the animals, but there were instinctual behaviours that were unstoppable – newborn babies rooting for milk or ‘walking’ when lifted up, flight or fight. But what if the impulse was not from within? But from without?  
John Lee Roche brought out an impulsiveness in him that he knew had always been there, bubbling under the surface. He usually controlled it with his need to do good, to look out for the victims, his empathy. That empathetic side of him had probably saved him from a path to certain self-destruction. Samantha’s disappearance had altered his life – was always going to – but he could so easily have slipped into drugs or alcohol or crime as a way of coping. Instead, he determined to get justice. To seek the truth. And he found himself open to the people he met on that journey in a way that gave hope to his quest. If he could save others, he was saving Samantha, and he was saving himself. But John Lee Roche. He was something else. That monster and his quiet composure, his mesmeric evil, his destructive charm got him rattled. Mulder had broken the rules before, but he never put others in danger. In that bus, with Roche’s calm voice, that terrified child, the ghost of Samantha telling him that she wasn’t Roche’s victim, he had only one option to redeem himself and his impulsivity. The shot cracked the air. It was over. But it wasn’t.  
This feeling now as he drives is frightening. It’s not what he expected. It’s a frothing, billowing, uncontrollable urge and it’s angry. He doesn’t think there is anything that can redeem him this time. He manages to pull over at a gas station, swallowing the Coke he buys in greedy gulps. He attacks a candy bar and takes a piss in the smelly bathroom. His body is thrumming with tension. He feels he could run to Scully, a marathon of the heart.  
His phone rings. Skinner. He switches it off and pulls out on to the open road, buzzing with need.


	14. Chapter 14

Mulder smiles above her and lifts her, wrapping his grateful arms around her and breathing into her neck. His tears are warm, his breath hotter, his words hidden under her hair and his emotion. She holds him, his heart pumping against hers. There is nothing between them, there is only love. She is suspended in the warm weight of them and she never wants to leave. He is her saviour and her motivation, her present and her future. He is Mulder. He is hers. She is his. He is all she has ever known and all she has ever wanted. He is desire and flesh and need and heart.  
“I knew you’d come,” she whispers.  
He doesn’t answer.  
She opens her eyes. There is a blinding light. A searing flash of pain. Then emptiness. Dull nothingness. She holds her breath. She is lighter. There are no arms around her. No chest against hers. No pulse giving her hope. There is no Mulder.  
When she was returned, she lay in a suspended state between past and future, death and life. She couldn’t speak but she was aware of what was happening. Nurse Owens helped her. Helped her to see what was happening around her, inside her. It was like she was outside her own body, watching, waiting. Waiting for some sign. Base human instinct to survive, to beat the odds, to fight. She didn’t know how strong she was until that time. She had pushed through to survive against all odds. Mulder told her after how useless he felt, how angry he had been, how her sister had tried to convince him that death was natural, normal, but that he railed against it, wouldn’t accept it. To him it was unnatural, not the path to take. Death was not to be welcomed, but was to be rejected. Nurse Owens told her the same and she did reject it. She drew on the deepest pit of strength within her and lived.  
There is no Mulder. There is only darkness. And there is the beating of her heart and the deep intake of her hitching breaths and the shushing noise of wind through leaves. She sinks onto her backside, legs outstretched and screams into the night. The grass stabs the skin on her lower calves. The earth is cool under hands. She screams and screams, digging dirt, scratching and clawing until her brain registers that she is home. She is free.  
But she is alone.  
She rubs the dirt off her hands, feeling it crumble and fall away. The organic smell fills her lungs. She tries to centre herself, control her breathing. She closes her eyes again, blocking out the fear, the fear of possibilities.  
“Where are you, Mulder?”  
I’m here, Scully. I’m coming.  
“We need you. We need you to find us.”  
Tell me where you are. Give me a sign.  
She looks down now. In the dimmest of star light, she sees the square shape of her top. She slides a hand under and feels the bottom of her breast, heavy but comforting. She taps the bone underneath and looks up.  
“We’re here, Mulder. We’re here and we’re waiting.”


	15. Chapter 15

He wakes in the car, head up, mouth open, dry. His hand is under his shirt, flat against his chest, nipple hard in the cold night air.  
“Here,” he says. “You’re here.”  
“Hey, buddy. You awake. You alive, even?” The old man is stooped at his window, tapping arthritic fingers on the glass.  
Mulder blinks and rolls the window down. “I’m fine.”  
“Your lights have been doing all sorts of crazy things. Like some damned disco or something. Some of us is trying to sleep.” He coughs and hoicks up spit. Mulder flinches and watches him hobble back to the vehicle behind him, a battered pick up truck. The man climbs in and disappears into the reflective shadows.  
Outside, it’s early morning grey and sombre. He wonders how long he slept, he doesn’t even remember pulling over. As he stretches his sore legs out and rolls his shoulders, he thinks about what the old man meant about the lights. He gets out and walks to the front of the car, kneeling to touch the headlights. They are warm. He does the same at the back. The lights and the blinkers are warm too. He pulls his phone from his pocket. Missed calls from Skinner and Westaway.  
He sits back in the seat and rubs his hands down his face. He remembers the feeling of the dream but not the dream itself. He was holding her, he was sure of that. He inhales and can smell her shampoo on his hands. He needs something to drink, coffee. He needs to work out where he is. He goes to turn the key in the ignition when the dash lights up, the horn blares and the lights flash against the brooding blacktop ahead.  
Their first case, in the very plausible state of Oregon had been memorable for many reasons. Not the least of which was his discovery that the agent sent to spy on him was in fact a very plausible agent with a capacity to make him pay his way. Scully revealed herself to be honest and open, a first class investigator and a surprising ally. As they drove through the night and he pushed at her, trying to rattle her, their car lost power and they lost nine minutes.  
“Time can’t just disappear. It…it’s a universal invariant.”  
His eidetic memory allowed him to recreate the scene. The lashing rain. The cold. Her high-pitched insistence that he was wrong. God, it was such a ride, that case. She was young, she was naively regimented in her thinking. He remembered allowing the thought to cross his mind that if he just had the guts he would pull her to him and kiss her wet face. He was struck with the impulse to mark the occasion with some rash emotional act. He knew even then, on that first case, that Dana Scully would push him to rash emotional acts. It might have taken a few years, but oh brother, did he do rash.  
But back then, on the road in Bellefleur, the car suddenly burst back into life and the lights hit them. He didn’t kiss her. But he did think about it. A lot.  
He drives on. The sun rises and he feels a little empty. The urge has subsided. He feels aimless, anchorless.   
His phone rings. “Byers. Any news?”  
“There’s nothing, Mulder.”  
“What the hell does that mean?”  
“No craft, nothing. It’s like they just switched off all the lights.”


	16. Chapter 16

She has been walking for hours. Her bare feet are cut and blistered, covered in dirty blades of grass and soil. Her ankles are swelling, her calves on fire. Ligaments in her knees grind and her hips ache with each step. She can hear her own laboured breathing, feel the burn in her lungs as she gulps in air to propel her forward. There is a tingling at the base of her skull, making her neck and shoulders itch. She must move, must get home. She has no idea where she is. Or where home is. She doesn’t remember her name. Her mind is a blank. Like it’s been wiped clean. She just knows she cannot stop.  
Strange thoughts run around her mind. A bright room with burning pains. A darkened room, walls pressing in on her. A man’s face, gentle but sad. Floating, rushing noises. She rubs her huge belly. She knows she hasn’t got long before this baby is born. Weeks at most. She just knows that, but she can’t think how, she can’t think of anything solid. Her thoughts are muddled and nebulous. She is tired, but she is afraid to stop too long, to sleep. Where will she be if she wakes? Where has she been? Where is she going? Why is she alone?  
She looks around at the landscape, desolate, moon-like. Brown dirt, scrubby low-growing vegetation, rocky wasteland for miles in all directions. There are low mountains in the distance. The sky is hard blue, but she is cold, she is thirsty, she is hungry and she is bone-tired and cannot fight sleep any more. She squats down, feeling the press of her abdomen against her thighs. She is startled by the fleeting image of a man below her, moaning in ecstasy but before she can process the memory, it fades and she is only aware of her fatigue. She sinks to the cold ground, lying on her side against a smooth rocky mound. She lets hot tears run down her cheek, warming her with their bitterness. Who is she? Why is she here? Who is looking for her?  
When she wakes, it is because her feet and fingers are numb with cold. She flexes them and rubs them together. Her breath hangs before her in grey clouds. She shivers, her teeth chattering. She must move, must find water, must find something to eat.  
She walks again, every fibre and sinew screaming with pain. She has to rest regularly, and she does so, by kneeling on all fours, where she finds relief from the blinding pain that runs across her lower back. When she hangs her head forward and raises her back up, she feels the skin on her stomach tighten, like a belt cinching around her waist. She gasps at the strange sensation. She sits on her heels and holds her stomach, waiting for the tightening again. Braxton Hicks. She knows this is what the feeling is called. She draws in a shuddering breath and centres herself. If she knows this, perhaps she has given birth before. Or perhaps she has medical training. Perhaps she can do this. She gets up and walks on, concentrating on searching her mind, trying to find anything, any scrap of information that would give her an understanding of why she is here, in the middle of nowhere, heavily pregnant and with no memory. With every step she tells herself she is walking towards help, towards safety. She talks to her baby, wonders about its father, racks her brain for names, faces. Still that one gentle face comes to her, blurry but comforting somehow. Dark hair, full mouth. He means something to her, she feels this in her marrow.  
“Who is he?” she asks her baby. “Where is he?”  
Rain pelts down later. She opens her parched mouth. It is freezing and her lips barely move. But she swallows gratefully, greedily, laughing at herself, so base and animalistic. She feels this is incongruous to who she really is. She doesn’t feel like some scavenging, wandering soul. She has a life somewhere. She has people who miss her. She is someone.


	17. Chapter 17

Skinner is pissed. Supremely pissed. His loud booming reminders of where an agent’s duties and loyalties should lie, the tight reciting of bureau policy and procedure, Mulder’s humiliation lasts for minutes. He should feel more than he does but he stands in the office, nodding, relishing the anger, the fury. It cuts him and he loves it. He knows he fucked up. He knows he abandoned his partner. He knows he should have phoned in. He knows. He cares more than they think, Skinner and Bullen and Westaway.  
When he drove back his mind was empty, like a switch had been flicked off. Where there had been a connection that compelled him to search for her, there was, there is still, nothing and he is frightened. He has never been this scared for her, for them. She is carrying his child, but he can’t tell Skinner. Their child, a baby. But where is she. He should have found her, she was so close, he could feel her, hear her. But when the craft left, so did his connection.  
The gunmen feed him but he doesn’t taste anything. He is existing. How long can he exist before he breaks down, gives up? Scully has always had such faith in his relentlessness but faith can be misplaced, they’ve both seen that before. Faith is meant to be tested, he knows that, but how far, to what limits?  
Why did the connection just break? What caused it to sever? He cannot fathom. Doesn’t want to. He is frightened to push too deep now because the silence is something he is not prepared to hear.  
“It could mean that the craft have abandoned their mission, been called back,” Byers offers. His voice is quiet, testing the waters.  
“And that doesn’t guarantee her return, or her safety,” Mulder says.  
“But it might mean she has been let go,” Langly says, popping the lid off a beer.  
Mulder swigs it, letting the liquid fizz down his gullet. “It might.”  
Frohike is looking at the network of screens, flickering and grainy satellite images. There is nothing but ghost grey everywhere he looks.  
He is still scared.  
When they found the truth about the mystery of Samantha’s disappearance, that she was really dead, had been for many years, through all the searches and false leads, he felt a sense of an ending. Closure was something his mind and body had longed for over the duration, and it was true, that knowing was better than not knowing. He had a version events about her life, however sad and unsettling it had been, that rang true, that left him not in a constant state of wondering. His quest was over and it was a relief. He had spent a lifetime looking and he found the answer eventually. He could rest.  
But with Scully, it feels different. If he looks too hard, if he follows his instincts and upends every obstacle, follows every twisting lead, what will he find?  
He is still scared.


	18. Chapter 18

She isn’t really walking any more. She is dragging herself along. A cool wind is chilling through her, bringing with it the fresh smell of pine. She imagines an oasis ahead of her, towering trees surrounding a clear lake. She knows she’s seen this image many times before. But when and why? Where has she been? Who has she been?  
She reaches the softer grass at the edge of the lake, the warmer soil, the organic scent of lapping water wafting up to bring her comfort. She sinks down, tears streaming now. She cups the water and brings it to her mouth. It is sun-warmed and gritty but she gulps it down and lets it spill down her chin and her top. She rubs it over her cheeks, forehead, neck and turns her face up to the sky. The brightness hits her and she drops back onto her backside.  
There were faces peering over her, men, hazy shadows that came and went. She was lying on a gurney, strapped down and the equipment vibrated with a noise that embedded terror deep within her. The metallic arm lowers and clamps over her belly button, pulling with a brutal force and inflating her stomach. Silent horror filled her and she desperately tried to find a place for her whirring mind to settle.  
She looks out across the water and blinks at its calm beauty. It is still and she just breathes. And breathes.  
The boat was tethered to a wooden jetty and there were people watching her, but she wanted to be free. The feeling grew from within her, spreading through her, reaching out of her until the rope broke and she floated away into the calm stillness.  
She sits and watches the nothingness. The buzz at the base of her neck comes and goes, like the faint noise of a bee. She gasps.  
The cold floor cut into her hips and shoulders but she was trying to get oxygen into her lungs. She could feel the fear swirling in her stomach but her hold on consciousness was slipping away with each restricted and painful breath.  
She touches the back of her neck. She presses there, desperate to remember. These images are memories, of that she is sure. She wants to go back, no matter how frightening the sequences are. There are people and places and stories inside her and she wants to get them out. She lays back on the grassy bank and runs her hands around her swollen belly. She feels the baby move. Eros. Why does she call him that?

She tipped the beer into her mouth and looked sideways at him. His distinctive profile has always been a pleasure to look at, but lately, she has been aware of the tingling in her centre, the warm flush that spreads under her skin, the thickening of her saliva. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so light yet so full. He has always got under her skin, but she never imagined he could fit within her so completely.  
She opens her eyes when she hears the sound of a vehicle approaching. She struggles to right herself and hesitates a moment. Flee or stay? This is the moment to decide.


	19. Chapter 19

There is something about Westaway’s words that tells Mulder to steel himself. The young agent’s voice is a pitch higher, his words are a little clipped, his cheeks a little paler.  
“Skinner is looking for you. You need to get to his office immediately.”  
“Why?” He hears himself asking but he doesn’t want to know.  
Westaway shrugs, looks down to a pile of papers on the desk, doesn’t dare look up again.  
Skinner seems tighter, pent up, coiled and ready. His collar is digging into his neck. His thumb nails scrape over the skin on his clasped hands. His jaw flexes. Mulder waits to be asked to sit, but he doesn’t think he can stand much longer. His stomach is roiling. His mouth and throat dry out. His chest hurts with the sharpness of his breathing.  
“There’s a Jane Doe. Same build, hair colour.”  
There is a rushing in Mulder’s ears that blocks out the rest.  
The underground car park smelt of piss and gas fumes. He wanted to smash the informant’s face in, but kicking his car helped. He thought he could face his worst nightmares, he’d had years of practise. Monsters and mutants and murdering men. Missing sisters and dysfunctional parents. Isolation and ridicule. He’d almost lost her once before. She was dead. To all intents and purposes she was no longer Dana Scully, hooked up to the ventilator, tape over her eyes. She was a shell. But she came back that time. He hadn’t realised how deeply he cared for her, for what they’d found in each other, until it was taken. Or maybe, he just hadn’t allowed himself to realise. Because feeling, because emotion was perhaps the scariest and strangest enemy.  
He stood outside the morgue, pulled the blind himself, looked through the window. His mind was blank at that moment. Perhaps as a subconscious trigger to prepare for the news. Empty out the contents, ready to cope with the filling of dread and rage and fear and futility.  
But it wasn’t her. It wasn’t her and his knees softened and he breathed in oxygen and hope.  
Westaway offers to drive. Mulder lets him. Handing over the keys feels like handing over the responsibility somehow. If this is her, he needs to be empty again.  
“It might not be her, Agent Mulder. You have to hold on to that hope.” His voice is soft and his hands tremble on the steering wheel.  
Mulder doesn’t reply. He looks out at the streetscape, alive with people. He thinks about hope.


	20. Chapter 20

It’s an old pick-up truck and she watches from her vantage point, behind a thick, dark clump of reeds. If she runs, she will be in plain sight. If she stays, she can observe. Her calmness in the situation surprises her. It’s instinctual, this waiting. She feels as though she has been trained to watch and to rationalise, to weigh and to measure.  
The driver opens the door, leaving the car lights on. He is young, dark hair feathering out under a cap, baggy worn denims, a cable knit sweater in dark green. He goes to the tray and reaches in, coming out with a fishing rod and a tackle box. He tucks something else under his arm, something she can’t make out, and he walks to the edge of the lake. It’s dusk, cool condensation hanging in the air. She shivers slightly. The man sets down his rod and box, and from under his arm, he retrieves a large umbrella. He opens it and leans it on its handle, its blue and white canopy a garish shock against the natural setting. He returns to the truck, pulls out a heavy blanket, a camp chair, an ice box and a newspaper.  
She shifts on her knees, her hips aching. Her stomach tightens and her abdomen goes rock hard. It is stronger than before, not painful, but noticeably uncomfortable. She breathes through it. Settles herself. Watches the man as he brings more items from his truck. A camping lantern, a small fold out table, a Thermos. She licks her lips, thirsty by reaction.  
Ahab constructed a tent like the Navy officer he was. Every person in the crew had a job. The boys were given the physical tasks and she and Missy were ordered to help their mother with the more domestic activities. As she grew, this annoyed Dana. She was bigger than Charlie, stronger, smarter. Why couldn’t she help with the annexe? Why couldn’t she work out the best position for the camp fire? Why couldn’t she sharpen the knives? She loved her mother and she didn’t mind Missy if she was in a good mood, but setting out the kitchen area or rolling out the bedding was boring.  
One time, late in summer when the air was heavy with a storm and Bill had fallen in love for the first time and spent most of the trip staring out of the window and Missy had her head stuck in a book about white witches and Charlie was clutching his basketball like it was a baby and her mother was struggling with painful knees and her father had pulled up the truck and disappeared to the toilet block then struck up a conversation over an early beer with the family next door because the father was wearing a US Marines cap, Dana got to the back of the truck first and pulled out the tent.  
She chose the spot, pegged it out, constructed the tent and began on the annexe before anybody offered to help. Her mother leant against the car, fanning herself with a newspaper, Bill was snipping at Charlie because he kept dribbling the ball around him, Missy was under the shade of a tree reading still.  
Dana wiped away bobbles of sweat that pearled around her forehead and upper lip as she stood back to check that the canvas was pulled tight across the sides.  
“Dana, what do you think you’re doing?” Her father’s booming voice had got louder with the beer he’d drunk.  
She turned to him, his moon face ruddy. “I put up the tent. I’m just about to start on the annexe.”  
He tipped the last of his beer into his mouth and swallowed loudly. The first crack of thunder boomed. He stood there, silently appraising her work, scrutinising through narrowed eyes. She felt her initial confidence wane with each passing, quiet second. Perhaps she’d leapt in too fast, perhaps she should have asked for help, perhaps the tent was in the wrong spot, perhaps they’d have to pull it down and start again. The first drops of rain began to fall. He moved towards her, back upright, chin held high. He ran his fingers along the joins where the sides met the roof, flattened his hands down the walls, sucked in a breath.  
“Starbuck,” he said. “This is fine workmanship. You have a natural eye for precision.” He grinned at her the moment the sky lit up with lightning. “Now let’s get the annexe up before we get soaked. Boys, Melissa, report for duty! Dana, why don’t see if your mother needs something. I think you’ve put in enough, today.”  
She smiled up at him and he rubbed her shoulder. Not a demonstrative man, his touch meant more than his words. She slept well that night. Satisfied with her accomplishments.  
She watches now as the man waits for his catch. Timing. This will all be about timing.


	21. Chapter 21

Westaway opens the door for them. The morgue is surprisingly noisy. Alive. Mulder stops.  
“Agent Mulder?” Westaway lays a hand on his shoulder. “Fox? If you need a moment, we can take our time.”  
The use of his first name. Coming from a man, it’s strange. He blinks. Westaway is touching him. It feels odd. He makes himself breathe. “I’ll be fine. Let’s go.”  
When Samantha had been missing for three years, his parents got a call from the local sheriff. His father answered the phone, cigarette burning bright in the darkened hallway. Mulder sat at the top of the stairs. He’d been studying Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, but needed a break. Then the phone rang. His mother was already in bed, but he heard the floor of her room creaking and she walked past him, wearing the long white robe he always thought made her look like a ghost floating down the stairs.  
“Go back to your room, Fox.” She turned back to him from the bottom of the stairs, after his father had given her a steely look and shaken his head.  
Mulder shifted away from the landing, hiding in the shadows of the tallboy against the wall. He heard the strange note in his father’s voice. The clipped tone, the crack in his voice when he said good-bye. He snuck forward, looking through the banisters at his mother’s ashen face. Even more ghostly now in the half-light. She pressed a handkerchief to her mouth, sniffed into it, and began a kind of muffled keening, rhythmic in its desperation. His father stood still, shoulders back, chin upright, cigarette ash dropping to the floor. He said something in a gruff, low voice that Mulder couldn’t hear. He didn’t hold his mother, offer her any comfort. He simply moved past her, took his jacket from the coat stand and left the house.  
Mulder heard the car engine start up and the tyres crunch down the driveway. His mother’s low moaning became louder and he trod down the stairs to the kitchen where she was sitting on her chair, head in her hands, shoulders shuddering.  
“What’s wrong, Mom?”  
“Go back to bed, Fox.” She stood up, the chair scraping over the flagstone floor. She ran a glass of water for herself and sat back down. She looked to the window, with its lacy net and frilly blind. Mulder hated the floral pattern, so garish. But the light beyond, from the street, seemed to dull it down, so that the colours muted and fused. He saw faces, not flowers. He saw gargoyle grins and empty eye sockets. He blinked and turned away.  
“Where’s dad gone?”  
“Go to sleep, Fox. It’s late.”  
“You can’t keep me in the dark all the time, Mom. If this is something to do with Samantha, don’t you think I deserve to know?”  
She looked at him through her red-rimmed eyes, heavy with tears still to fall. She looked so old these days. Like the weight of the past three years had dragged and scratched against her skin. “There are some things you don’t need to know, son.”  
“That’s not fair, Mom. She was my sister. I miss her too.” He slammed the table and the salt and pepper shakers jumped and fell, spilling crystals over the pine surface. The mingled together, black and white, and he saw the faces again, cruel smiles. He spread his hand over the mess and wiped through it.  
His mother stood and got a cloth the wipe it away. “Your father has been called to identify a body. A young girl’s remains were found earlier this week.”  
“Do you think it’s her? Does Dad?”  
She wiped her hands on a clean tea towel and looked at him. “This isn’t the first time we’ve been through this.”  
He hadn’t known. And he hadn’t really entertained the thought of her being dead. But of course, logically, with three years of nothing, no news, no sightings, no leads, of course she could be dead. Sickly dread crawled through his veins. The muscles in his neck tightened and he felt nauseous. He felt stupid. How could he be so dumb?  
“What will you do if it is her?”  
His mom actually laughed then, a sad laugh into her hanky. “We’ll start to live again.”  
He shook his head, not understanding her callousness. “How could you say that?”  
“This family has stood still. In three years we’ve been stuck in a bog of sadness and loss, of desperation and being afraid to move on. What if we left this house? Where would Samantha go if she ever came back? How would she find us? What if we have a memorial service to celebrate her life? But if she’s not dead, what a wicked thing that would be. What if we give her clothes to the goodwill? You can’t do that, she might come back,” she spat out the words. “What use would her clothes be to her? She’d be eleven now – on the verge of womanhood. But we can’t make any changes, Fox. No. We have to keep still, stay the same.”  
He hung his head, burning tears welling over.  
“Your sister is gone, Fox. I accepted that early on. We may never know how or why or where. But she is gone. And I want to move on. But your father…he can’t, he won’t. I know this sounds cruel, but I really hope it is her. I want it to be her. I need it to be her.”  
He hated her for that. Hated her for wishing his sister dead. “I don’t. I think she’s out there. I want to find her. Don’t you want to find her?”  
“You’re so like your father, Fox.”  
“I’m nothing like him.”  
“He chose your name.”  
“It’s a fucking stupid name. I hate it.”  
“Fox, watch your mouth!”  
“You named me after a hunter, a cunning predator, a feral animal. And yet you gave my sister a symbolic name - the name of God. What do you think that does to me?”  
She reached across the table and grabbed his hands. Hers were surprisingly warm. “You know that as a spirit animal the fox has increased awareness, is quick in tricky situations, has excellent physical and mental responsiveness and an affinity with dreams. Your father always said your name came to him in a dream. Just like Samantha’s did. You may not know it, but your father has always been in touch with his spiritual side. He says it keeps him from crossing the line.”  
Mulder pulled his hands away. “I hate it. I fucking hate my name.”  
“It’s yours, Fox. It’s what we gave you. A special name for a special boy.”  
“I’m nothing special,” he said, heading back to his room. “Samantha is the special one.”

Westaway lets him go first and he is conscious of the younger man’s footfalls behind him. He turns away before the ME pulls back the sheet from the body.  
“It’s not her,” he says.  
“How do you know? He hasn’t shown you the face yet,” Westaway says.  
“I just do.”  
Westaway enters the room. Mulder can hear the ME’s terse voice and Westaway’s calming responses.  
The drive back is silent. Westaway is desperate to ask, but won’t. Mulder is grateful.  
“What’s your first name?”  
Westaway chuckles. “We’ve been working together for a while, and you still don’t know?”  
Mulder shrugs. Traffic is heavy. The fog is rolling in. He squeezes his eyes shut against the faces that form in the grey.  
“John. God is gracious. Has been one of the most popular male names for centuries. I guess I’m just boring. Not like you. Your name is pretty special.”  
Mulder opens his eyes and smiles at the agent. “She wasn’t pregnant.”  
“What?”  
“The Jane Doe. You asked me how I knew. She wasn’t pregnant.”  
Westaway grips the wheel and drives on.


	22. Chapter 22

She tries to rest, lying on her side but the baby is active, rolling and kicking and making her feel nauseous. The earth is soft and the lapping water is comforting but her mind keeps tracking back to the feeling that someone is waiting for her, someone is looking for her, someone important, someone desperate. She had hoped that her memory would return but it is still a void. There are strange flashes, horrific images of bodies and outlandish creatures and fire and icy cold. But she can’t hold on to them. They leave her feeling restless, like running in a dream, when you just can’t move quickly enough.  
A sharp pain grips her lower abdomen and she tries not to cry out, aware that the fisherman is still at his spot. His radio has been playing soft rock for hours. The pain subsides and she sits up, rubbing her stomach. She cannot see anything but the silvery tops of the water where the moon shines. A minute passes and the pain starts again. The pressure in her stomach is intense. She breathes through it but she feels displaced by the brutality of it. She manoeuvres herself on to all fours when the next one comes and finds some relief in rocking back and forward. But the pain comes in waves and she barely reaches the crest of one before the next comes crashing down. She knows the baby will come soon and she feels the dryness in her throat as she realises the weight of what is happening. Before she can consider it further pain grips her stomach and she rocks again, panting through the contraction. Her fingers dig into the earth and she takes some comfort in the feeling of the soil against her skin. She sinks back on her feet when the pain subsides and gathers herself.  
Before the next contraction, there is a faint buzzing at the back of her neck and she touches the spot. It feels cool where the rest of her is hot from effort. She holds her fingers there and feels a vibration.  
“Mulder,” she says. The word feels familiar on her tongue and she realises she is smiling. Then she is doubled over by pain and she issues a guttural groan as she grits her teeth.  
When Charlie was born, Dana was just a young girl and while she had known her mother was going to have a baby, she somehow hadn’t worked out what that really meant. She stood at the foot of the crib and watched him snuffle and curl his fists. She was curious. He was so tiny but looked so determined. She touched his soft skin and downy hair and he gurgled and started. His eyes were so serious, like he held the world’s secrets in his mind and if she asked nicely he might tell her. She loved how his legs kicked out and his arms flailed. How his tiny thumb would slip into his mouth as his energy levels dipped and his face turned away to find sleep.  
When he was just a few weeks old, she heard him crying in the night. Her father was away and her mother was frazzled with exhaustion. Dana crept into her parents’ room to see her mother curled on her side, sleeping. She leant over the crib and Charlie was fretting, trying to find his thumb and letting out short bursts of mewling when he failed. She stroked his forehead and he settled at her touch. She crooned as gently as she could, the verse of a lullaby she loved. She didn’t hear her mother wake and walk around to her.  
“What are you doing here, Dana?”  
“I heard the baby. You were asleep.”  
Her mother smiled and patted her head. “I think you have the magic touch, Dana. He doesn’t settle that quickly for me.”  
“Do you think he knows who we are?”  
Maggie nodded. “Oh yes. Their eyes don’t work very well but babies know you by smell and the sound of your voice. It’s instinctual.”  
Charlie gurgled again then let out a sharp cry. Dana patted his forehead again but he continued to fret. She looked up at her mother.  
“I think he’s hungry. And I’m the only one who can do anything about that, Dana.”  
Dana watched her mother feed her brother and saw the haze of sleep fall over the baby’s face.  
“Go back to bed, Dana. He’ll be fine for the rest of the night. His tummy is full now. He feels comfortable, warm and safe.” She put Charlie in the crib and pulled the little blanket up and under his arms.  
Dana got back into her own bed and her mother walked in, pulling her blanket up and tucking her in. She smoothed back her hair and kissed her forehead. Comfort, warmth and safety.  
As she comes down, she feels the ache in her jaw where she clamped down so hard during the peak pain. She pushes herself back onto her heels, her muscles quivering. When she opens her eyes, she sees him. The fisherman.


	23. Chapter 23

He wakes and feels the pull again, the connection. He sits up, shoves off the sheets, pulls on his clothes.  
“Scully. Hold on, please. I’ll find you.”  
He is in the car, not sure where he’s going. He just knows he has to drive. The phone rings and Byers is telling him that there is activity again, over Wyoming. He mentally calculates how long it would take to drive and if he could do it without sleeping.  
Westaway calls. “Agent Mulder, are you coming in today? Skinner is asking for a meeting.”  
“Tell him I’ll be there a little later. I have something to do first.”  
The ice was blinding white. Even with his snow gear it was bitter and the effort of trudging through knee-deep snow was exhausting. But there was no choice. She was in there and he had to get her out.  
As he walked he replayed that moment in the hallway. That was some moment. It should have been their first kiss. When she’d delivered her message in his apartment, it shocked him. He was pinned to the ground, his mind blank, his stomach roiling. Yet a second later, when her words had sunk in, it galvanised him. But there was no choice. She was leaving and he couldn’t let her do that.  
She was covered in goop, her hair was plastered to her face, she was naked under his coat. He breathed life into her and tried not to consider it their first kiss.  
When they did finally kiss, when their lives were not threatened and when there was time to savour the moment, it was sweet. Passion would come later, but that kiss, in the hospital waiting room watching the ball drop, that was the one he would recall with a sense of reverence. It was like time stood still. He lowered his head as she was still watching the screen but she must have seen it out of the corner of her eye because when he was nearly there she turned, and she was ready. Their lips touched and the world didn’t end, but it did stop spinning for him. Her smile was everything and he just knew that a deeper connection had been made. It wasn’t what he expected after all the years they’d circumvented their feelings. It wasn’t the leaping in kind of loss of control kiss borne out of anger or resentment or fear or desperation that he expected. It was true and pure and more than he could hope for.  
And the pull between them, the gravity that had always been there, it was louder and stronger and more irresistible from that moment on. Magnetic. And when the inevitable happened he knew she would always be by his side.  
The buzz in his mind is leading him. Magnetic. He has to find her. There is no choice. He will walk through ice. He will fight off aliens. He will smash his way through glass or doors or faces to find her. He will get to her and their son and he will always be by their sides.


	24. Chapter 24

He looks more frightened than she is as he sinks down to his knees and puts a hand on her shoulder.  
“Ma’am? Are you having a baby?”  
She realises just how young he is, no more than a boy really. His mouth is drooping open and she can see braces on his teeth. A rash of pimples sits across his forehead and his chin and upper lip are sporadically whiskered.  
“I’m…I…yes. I am,” she says and she wants to laugh at the absurdity of the situation.  
He frowns and worries his bottom lip with his teeth. “Why are you here?”  
She sucks in a breath as another contraction hits, groaning as it reaches its crescendo, then subsides. “I don’t know,” she pants.  
“I can take you to the hospital. You should be in the hospital.” He is tugging at her to stand her up but the next pain shoots across her back and down the fronts of her legs.  
She grunts and digs her nails into the soft earth. “No time,” she says, as warm liquid gushes out. “Baby’s coming.”  
She rocks back on her heels for moment and tries to think what to do. A voice is telling her that she needs to pant through these contractions, that she shouldn’t push straightaway, that she will know when the time is right. She wonders if this is not her first baby.  
“Tell me what to do,” the fisherman says.  
She drops her hands down again and pants. The pain is different now, sharper but lower down, she feels the urge to push but knows it’s too soon. She pants through it. When she looks up, he is gone.  
Missy took great delight in telling her the facts of life. But she didn’t get the satisfaction of seeing Dana screw up her face in disgust. In fact, she was fascinated by the mechanics of the human body and by what an amazing machine it was. While Missy spent her nights under the covers wondering what it felt like to kiss someone, Dana spent hers with a flashlight reading medical books she borrowed from the library. Sure, she wanted to find out what it felt like to kiss someone, but she was also interested in the way the mouth moved to complete the action, what the chemical responses in the body would be, if you could cause injury through kissing. The important stuff.  
When Missy was sixteen, she had a scare. Dana found her crying in her room.  
“What’s the matter, Missy? Why are you crying?”  
“Go away, Dana.”  
“Let me help. Please.”  
“There’s nothing you can do.”  
Dana sat on the side of the bed and pulled the blanket up over her sister’s shoulder. “Maybe there is. Maybe you’ll feel better if you just talk about it.”  
Missy sniffed and turned on to her back. She ran her hands through her ratty hair. “I missed a period.”  
“Just one?” Dana asked, handing her sister a tissue.  
“Yeah, just one.”  
“And is it possible you’re pregnant? I mean, have you…”  
“Yeah, I have. Don’t…”  
“I won’t say anything,” she said. “Are you regular?”  
“Yes. No. I don’t fucking know, Dana. What are you, a fucking doctor?” Missy pushed herself up and picked at a cotton thread.  
“There could be lots of reasons why your period didn’t come, Missy. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re pregnant. Stress, poor diet, hormone imbalances. But you should do a test.”  
“I can’t do that. Doc Flanagan will tell for sure.”  
“You can do a home test. They’re available at the pharmacy these days.”  
“I can’t buy one, Dana. Mr Pearson at the drug store would tell for sure.”  
Dana stood up. “I’ll get you one.”  
Missy wiped the tears from her face with the heel of her hand. “Thanks, Dana. I’m sorry I yelled.”  
“S’okay. You’re worried. I understand.” She got to the door and turned back. “Missy?”  
“Yeah?”  
“Do you love him?”  
Missy threw her head back and laughed.  
The pressure was building and she can’t hold back from pushing any longer. At the peak of the contraction she strains as hard as she can as she squats on the shore.  
“Is it coming?” the fisherman is back and he hands her a bottle of water.  
She sips gratefully. “Nearly.”  
“What’s your name, ma’am? Mine’s Trent.”  
“Nice to meet you, Trent. I’m…”  
The contraction cuts off her voice. She groans through the pain. “I don’t remember my name. I don’t remember anything about how I got here or where I came from. I only know that I’m going to have a baby next to a lake in the middle of nowhere.”  
She throws her head back and laughs.


	25. Chapter 25

He’s been driving for nearly 14 hours straight and he’s still so far away from Scully. He cranks up the radio and the air conditioning. The radio is playing Walking in Memphis and he allows himself a small chuckle. He looks to the passenger seat to say something. But she’s not there. There are miles between them, miles of empty road, miles of dingy diners and bitter coffee, miles of memories to keep him going, so he hits the gas and drives.  
This coffee isn’t too bad. Although, the bottom of his mouth feels so rough he wonders if he’s permanently damaged his taste buds. He looks up to skies as he drains the cup.  
“When I find you, Scully, we’re going to buy the best coffee machine we can afford and you can fix up my taste buds with whatever medication or therapy I need and the kid will be blending his own beans by the time he goes to high school.”  
“You asking the big fella upstairs to buy you a coffee maker, man? That’s some prayer.” The old truckie coughs out a laugh as he walks back to his vehicle.  
Mulder hasn’t truly prayed for a long time. But he whispers an entreaty as he climbs back behind the wheel. His phone buzzes. Westaway.  
“Agent Mulder. I have a message from AD Skinner. Either you get back here as soon as you can, or you don’t come back at all.”  
“Tell him thanks for the offer, Agent.”  
Westaway sighs and Mulder can imagine him rubbing his forehead and nodding at Skinner standing in the corner of the office. “Agent Mulder, where are you?”  
“Nowhere near where I want to be.”  
“And where’s that?”  
“Where I’m needed.”  
Skinner’s voice booms in his ear. “Agent Mulder, you’re needed here.”  
There was a time when he wasn’t sure if Skinner was on their side or not. Scully, when she was dying, she was convinced he was dirty. He’s proven himself enough now though. He’s solid, he’s got their backs. But there are some things he just can’t help with.  
He presses end call.  
Seven hours later, Westaway has sent 11 text messages. Skinner five. And there’s one from the Lone Gunmen.  
Emergency scanner pick up broadcast of interest. Contact us urgently.


	26. Chapter 26

She won’t give them the baby. She holds him close to her. There are hands all over her but she finds the strength to push them off. One of them, a strong woman, holds her down and another puts a mask over her face. She can’t get to it to rip it away without losing her grip on her baby. She shakes her head, furious. She tries not to breathe into it, what are they pumping into her? But her lungs are bursting. The baby is grizzling, fretting. She wants them to leave her alone but they are mauling her, lifting her, pushing her down. She kicks and rolls, clutching at her infant, so as not to lose her grip. Doors slam. Wires are strung up around her. Lights are flashing. Machines beep incessantly. She can’t do this again. She just can’t. When she feels the needle prick, she struggles afresh, but the grey beckons her.  
She wakes with a deep and pounding headache. Her mouth is dry, her lips scabby, her fingers ache and she doesn’t recall pain so profound in all her body before. She tries to look around but the light is too bright. She tries to think, to work out what has happened but there is nothing. She is woozy and feels the pull of sleep again. She is too fatigued to protest.  
The noise is incessant but rhythmical. She opens her eyes and the pain returns behind her eyes, pressing in on her head. The noise rises and falls with each pulsing ache. Someone touches her arm and she starts.  
“Miss? Miss?”  
The woman is wearing a uniform, pale blue, comforting. Her face is pleasant and soft. She has hair like her mother. Like her mother.  
“Where am I?”  
“Weston Memorial Hospital, Miss. You need to rest.”  
“Why am I here? Where is Weston Memorial? Where am I?”  
“Please, Miss,” she says, laying a hand on her shoulder. “You need to rest. Your baby needs you to be rested and well.”  
She pushes the nurse’s hand away. “My baby? Where’s my baby?”  
“Miss, it’s okay. He’s in the nursery. I’ll get him in a minute. He’s been sleeping. He’s fine.”  
“Has my mother been here?”  
The nurse stops at the door and looks back. “No, Miss. There have been no visitors.”  
“How did I get here?”  
“Medics brought you in after Trent Cauley called us. His grandfather’s the police chief here.”  
The fisherman. It drifts back in confusing patterns, ink splotches of memory swirling around. Walking. Pain. A lake. Cold. A fisherman. Labour. Dirt under her nails. Her baby. William. William, their son.  
The buzz at the back of her neck is back. Stronger and stronger as she brings William’s head up to kiss his downy forehead. He gurgles and she remembers.


	27. Chapter 27

His phone is on the last bar. He doesn’t have a charger. Byers texts the location and before he even opens the message he knows what it’s going to say. Weston Memorial. The name has come from within. If he tries, he can see the building. He can walk through the narrow, dingy corridor to room 42. He can see Scully and he can see William. He knows his son is named William. He knows where she is. Where he is. Where they are. He just needs to drive.  
When he started there were almost 1800 miles between them. Now he has crossed the border between South Dakota and Wyoming and he’s on the last stretch to Weston. But he feels it’s more than just distance that he has conquered. He has closed some kind of spiritual gap between him and Scully, something inner, something more than even emotional.  
His body is electric, a strange energy pulsing through him, rhythmic and calming. It is more than blood running through his veins. It is something higher than life. It comes back to that connection he felt weeks before. When the craft were still visible. But what has changed? The Gunmen report no further activity.  
William. It’s a good name. It has connections to them both. A pull, a string that, if unravelled, would inevitably, inexorably, lead back to him and to Scully. William.  
She presses the buzzer and the nurse comes.  
“Are you okay, Miss?”  
“Scully, my name is Dana Scully and I need to make a call.”  
The nurse goes to leave. “I’ll get the doctor.”  
“I am a doctor,” Scully says, breathing in the smell of her son’s skin. Soap and sleep. “I need a phone. Take me to a phone, please.” She swings her legs around and places her feet on the ground. Hard underfoot, it feels good, solid. She feels connected. Her neck pulses and William opens his eyes. The dark blue irises pull her in. His pupils are bright, contracted in the harsh light overhead. She can hear him. It is so clear. She can hear their son and though he may not have words or language yet, he has emotions. And he is happy.  
“You shouldn’t be up, Miss Scully. You’re dehydrated and you lost a lot of blood. You should be resting.” The nurse is gesticulating out of the door. The doctor arrives. He blocks her exit and she holds William to her.  
“I need to make a call. If you won’t let me, then you need to call. You need to get hold of Fox Mulder at the FBI. He’s my partner.” She looks down at William. His eyes are open, his hands clasped together. “He’s looking for me. He’s coming to find us. You need to…”  
“You must get back into bed, Miss Scully.” The nurse is pushing her back.  
“He’s coming,” she says, as the nurse plumps the pillow behind her.

Mulder enters the town in the darkest hours but he follows his heart.  
“I’m coming.”  
The hospital is easy to find, especially with his guides. The inarticulate rhythm in his mind has shown him the way and when he slips into the room he sees them waiting for him. Scully is barely awake, but William, their son, has his eyes wide open and he looks at Mulder with such a ferocious recognition that a sob escapes his throat in an instance.  
Scully’s head jerks up and he sees the vestiges of sleep dissipate. She is smiling through her own tears now. He reaches down and takes William from her, kisses his head.  
“I knew you’d find us, Mulder.”  
“I did too. Always.”  
He sits down and she touches his arm. “I told you once that I had the strength of your beliefs, remember?”  
Nodding, he smiles at her. “And I told you once I found the faith to keep looking.”  
“And you looked and you found us.” She rubs a finger across William’s cheek.  
“I did. Because you believed in me. In us.”  
Touching the back of her neck, her eyes glisten with tears again. “This time it was easy to believe, Mulder. It came from here,” she says, then moves her hand to her chest and taps, “and here.”  
“I know,” he says, and he leans forward, kissing her gently on the lips.


End file.
